Modules 2-4 of the CSBG Annual Report collect agency level data and are based on the State CSBG Reporting Period. NASCSP has developed several tools, including the CSBG Annual Report/ CSBG IS Survey Crosswalk, timelines for reporting, presentations and more. Please review the documents found on the NASCSP website in preparation for the upcoming VACAP Conference. OVCS staff will be discussing Virginia specific Annual Report information during the CSBG Roundtable.

Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills Training

If you missed out on the Facilitation Training that was hosted by Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia CSBG Office a few months back you now have additional opportunities to attend!

The Virginia Cooperative Extension has added the following sessions to their fall schedule:

The Cleaning Memo from NASCSP has been received and is due back to NASCSP by June 16, 2017. This Cleaning Memo is the follow-up document from the pre-cleaning process we, as a state office, conducted this past February.

The information referenced in the Cleaning Memo is related to the information reported on the 2016 fourth quarter report.If you had any outstanding questions from NASCSP, your agency will receive
an email from Kia Holder. Agencies should review the questions and submit explanations or corrections by COB June 16, 2017 .

Thank you for attending the Virginia Volunteerism and Service Conference!

For agencies that attended the 2017 Virginia Volunteerism and Service Conference, we want to thank you for attending! Over 350 people attended the conference from across the Commonwealth. We had 35 training sessions, relating to capacity building, volunteer management, and personal/professional development. Overall, we have received great feedback. If you attended and did not fill out the evaluation, please do so and suggest training topics for next year.

Resources for Community Action

Public Meeting Laws Recap

We have received several inquires over the past few weeks regarding electronic and phone meetings for board members and wanted to provide our recap of the Public Meeting Laws information. OVCS
had a representative from the FOIA Advisory Council who presented a webinar on public meeting laws several months ago. The representative discussed that the requirements around public meeting laws depend on the amount of government funds an agency receives. To find out if your agency would be subject to public meeting laws you could write to the FOIA advisory council. Second, we believe that for public meeting laws (if you are held to them), you cannot hold electronic or phone meetings except for some rare, minor exceptions (one person is ill and needs to join, etc.), and then you have to make sure the location they join from is available to the public. We would consider this to be an agency governance issue that we don't have specific monitoring around, we advise agencies to determine if they are held to public meeting laws and to follow their own bylaws and adhere to them as a normal course of good governance, not as a CSBG issue. We hope this helps your agencies as we move into summer, We would consider e-mailing the FOIA Advisory Council first to determine their take on whether you agency is held to public meeting laws.